On Turning Two

My dear son,

I can hardly believe that you are two years old. Where did the last 24 months go? I love you so much, and I am so proud to call you my son and to be your momma.

Each day, we see you grow and learn and become the boy God made you to be. And each day, we pray for wisdom and patience as we raise you.

Your favourite toys now are cars and lego. You're not playing with big kid lego yet, but it's smaller than the megablocks you used to play with and you love building towers, sorting colours, assembling trucks and taking apart everything that Daddy builds. With cars, you must have at least two or three cars within reach at all times. You take three cars to bed with you every night and cry like crazy if you lose them. You take cars out to our car and there's a stash in your carseat and on the ground of our vehicle. You push cars, carry cars, put cars into buckets and boxes, take them out again and make car sounds like 'beep beep' and 'bhhhhhh'.

Your language is really picking up lately. Just yesterday you had your first group speech therapy class and you did so well. You were much better behaved than the other kids; you shared toys, you cleaned up when it was time to put the toys away and you sat so good for story time. Your word count is well above what it was in June when we first took you to drop-in speech therapy. I'll have to count up your words soon, but just this week you learned 'down' and are using it lots now in the right context. And last week you finally mastered "Daddy." It was 'Baba' for a very long time and Daddy is so thankful that you finally learned how to say his name right.

Your personality is a bit of Daddy, a bit of Mommy and yet all your own. You're a happy kid, content to just play with your toys or to go to the park. You tend to roll with different events / activities each day and don't mind a change from our normal day-to-day routines. You love it when Mommy or Daddy plays with you and sometimes you can get very impatient when we have other things to do. But sometimes you play so well on your own and it makes us proud that you are getting to be such a big boy that you can find ways to entertain yourself.

You can be rambunctious and outgoing but you can also be shy in some new situations or with new people. But more and more, you are brave and willing to venture into the unknown. Mommy started going to a women's Bible study this year and on the very first day, you were fine in the nursery for the entire two hours. I was so proud of you! You're also fine staying at Grandma's house now. You've always liked it there but it used to be very hard for you to say bye to Mommy when I dropped you off. Grandpa remembers you standing at the door one time with one boot in your hand, looking out the window and crying for me. Now you barely give me a hug goodbye before you head back to your toys. It makes me happy and sad to see that - happy because I love my well-adjusted boy who trusts that I wil come back for him, but sad because it means you're growing up and don't need your momma as much anymore.

On that note, you sure do love your grandma and grandpa. The time we spent at Tillicum and Purden this summer really helped cement your relationship with them. Now you love to go to "Bumpa's" house where you happily play for hours with Grandma and keep a close eye on what Grandpa is up to. And they love you back lots and lots. I know they feel blessed and thankful to get to see you lots and to live so close. Did you know that Grandma and Grandpa actually moved to Chilliwack just to be close to you? It's true!

You are still a very good eater, something we're grateful for when we hear about the struggles some other kids give their parents to get food in their bellies. You are a fussier eater than you used to be, but almost everything makes its way into your mouth before the end of the meal. The one thing we simply cannot get you to eat is lettuce: romaine, iceberg, spinach - you won't eat any of it. But Mommy sometimes makes 'green monster smoothies' which have lots of spinach in them and you love those smoothies. I won't ruin them for you by telling you they're made with spinach! You are obessed with desserts ("dthhhhh") and would probably eat sweets all day if we let you. You love blueberries, strawberries, grapes, bananas, oranges and pretty much any other fruit we've ever given you. Watermelon was a favourite summer treat. You eat most meat, especially chicken, and quite often will eat your veggies. You started saying "noodle" and like all kinds of pasta.

You are a very good sleeper now. You go to bed at 7 p.m. with hardly a fuss and sleep until 5:30 or 6 a.m. most mornings. In the afternoon you nap for one to two hours and as long as you have your cars and a few books in your bed, you go to sleep without any problems.

You love Mommy for comfort times, but Daddy is still the one that makes you laugh like nobody's business. You two are definitely the best of playmates and I love watching the two of you play.

There is so much more I could say. But this post is already two weeks late in publishing! I love you so much Isaac, and I am so glad to be your mommy. Happy 2nd birthday!